I think that trying to achieve a full charge in such a short time is probably misguided. A commuter car that can be plugged in at home to charge overnight covers the majority of driving that most people do and that technology is already available. Once even a modest percentage of cars being driven this way are electric we can start working on vehicles that require longer trips and more rapid charge cycles. In the meantime, internal combustion power is going to remain with us for a while yet.

The article is discussing using supercapacitors in cars. Charging those in 10 minutes is completely realistic, assuming the storage capacity is not very large (ie to supplement li-ion which they mention).The title is deceptive clickbait implying existing cars could be charged that fast..

The Tesla Roadster 2.0, to be released in 2020, will have a 620 mile (1000km) range on 1 charge. Lets see some super-capacitor run a car 1000km on 1 charge and be fully recharged in 10 minutes for another 1000km of driving.

Just focus on hot swap battery stations guys, maybe even a standard based on all compatible, modular cells, just more or less of them, (not up on this, likely already exists). That solves all the problems with charging, and you can top up an electric car faster than a gas car in some cases using this.

It might charge in 10 minutes but how many kilometers can it go on that charge?

This is likely the same charging performance as Tesla superchargers. They fill it up most of the way in 30 minutes but since this supercap likely doesn't go nearly as far it proabobly takes the same amount of power to charge these capacitors in 10 minutes.

I was testing large supercapacitors some 2 years ago. It was about half a kilogram, and some 1000s of Farads. A half kilogram capacitor had about the energy of a AA NiMH battery.This could work for a bus line, where stops are every few hundred meters (in fact, the capacitors were for this application) but not for an electric car.

None of those scientists/engineers in the article dare to come up with hard numbers like energy needed for the "car" to move X km for a single charge of 10 minutes. The real essential info missing is what kind of car ?

Probably just another click bait where they spin off the electrical bus article ....

... or they mistakenly placed the wrong car's photo, the real one maybe for this kind of car ...

Just focus on hot swap battery stations guys, maybe even a standard based on all compatible, modular cells, just more or less of them, (not up on this, likely already exists). That solves all the problems with charging, and you can top up an electric car faster than a gas car in some cases using this.

IIRC Tesla had a couple of these stations, which they closed as no one wanted to use them. It automatically swapped the battery pack on the Model S in about 90 seconds

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Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe. - Albert Einstein

Just focus on hot swap battery stations guys, maybe even a standard based on all compatible, modular cells, just more or less of them, (not up on this, likely already exists). That solves all the problems with charging, and you can top up an electric car faster than a gas car in some cases using this.

IIRC Tesla had a couple of these stations, which they closed as no one wanted to use them. It automatically swapped the battery pack on the Model S in about 90 seconds

Not Tesla, Renault and Nissan. Fluence EV was battery swappable, and a huge flop. You didnt own the battery, only rented it, and the cost was higher than a regular car.

I was testing large supercapacitors some 2 years ago. It was about half a kilogram, and some 1000s of Farads. A half kilogram capacitor had about the energy of a AA NiMH battery.This could work for a bus line, where stops are every few hundred meters (in fact, the capacitors were for this application) but not for an electric car.

The article Homer linked to states that the super capacitors are not intended as primary storage but just to handle the big current surges during accellerating and braking. It makes sense to use super capacitors there in order to prolong the life of the Li-ion batteries. I don't see super capacitors as a primary energy storage any time soon because their energy density is way to low.

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There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.

Yeah renting the battery isn't gonna fly, nobody wants to be stuck with another monthly fee, with a car that becomes useless if you stop paying. If you own the battery and have it swapped you could end up trading a nice new pack for one that had been heavily used and abused.

Maybe a hotswap station that shows the age of the batteries you can swap out, with the price of an exchange being higher or lower for a newer or older battery. You go up, get sort of like a menu of batteries, choose which one you want, pay for it, and then swap it out.

Maybe a hotswap station that shows the age of the batteries you can swap out, with the price of an exchange being higher or lower for a newer or older battery. You go up, get sort of like a menu of batteries, choose which one you want, pay for it, and then swap it out.

If swap-able batteries came to be available in mass, can you just imagine the con re-furbished junk which will be guaranteed to eventually end up in the market. 1 day you have a good battery. The next, you wont make it back home, though the gauge says you should be able to. It will be the stupidest choice a consumer can make since they wont be able to confirm exactly what distance and wattage they are getting. I prefer having a battery pack design which exceeds the available amount of driving range you can do in 1 day.

I am pretty sure that hot swappable batteries would end up tracking their own performance. An inbuilt micro probably. The car has to know the available mileage. It can learn that with a single installed battery, but for swappable batteries, the information has to come with the batteries.

You would think there would have to be some kind of rules, such as when a battery pack drops to 80% capacity, it can no longer be recharged by a charging station - it has to be returned for recycling.

The article Homer linked to states that the super capacitors are not intended as primary storage but just to handle the big current surges during accellerating and braking. It makes sense to use super capacitors there in order to prolong the life of the Li-ion batteries. I don't see super capacitors as a primary energy storage any time soon because their energy density is way to low.

Plus in all the work I've done with them (solar race cars), they are invaluable for heavily dampening the HUGE switchmode / ripple that exists.I've measured up to 30V across a very wide bandwidth. Most battery chemistries only go to ~100Hz, maybe 200Hz before they start going HiZ.2 other issues with Supercap only -1/ Voltage output is linear with capacity - so when they are 50% depleted, you are 50% down on Vop. A disaster !!With Lithium, we usually take Vref as 3.6-3.7V, which is ~85% of capacity. If you have a 200-300Km range, then you can push that to ~90%3.8V-4.2V is only ~2-3%, depending on C. The rest is below 3.6V, and can be used safely, if you derate C load (I create a load profile for each pack).2/ Given that the max voltage of a supercap is ~3.0V, the more you put in series the more "equalization current" you need across each cap !!Unlike Li, which can hold equalization for months (again depending on C rates), these MUST be connected all the time.By my calculations, the current volumetric ratio (total energy) is ~20X, based on what is actually available now.They definitely have a place, but not as a complete replacement, not for a long time.

Battery swapping will not become palatable until someone creates a battery that will have an absolutely reliable and predictable state no matter what discharge conditions it faces.

This certainty is what people are used to and expect with petroleum fuels. Maximum output until the last few drops and the predictability is high as to when that is going to happen. For wide acceptance of electrical vehicles, the same level of certainty will be necessary - and I can't see that with hand-me-down batteries of today's chemistry.

The logistics of such a swap program are also enormous. They may be overcome in time - but to even have a chance, there must be a viable option in the batteries themselves - chemistry, form factor and so on.